WotC Vecna Eve of Ruin: Everything You Need To Know

WotC has posted a 19-minute video telling you 'everything you need to know' about Vecna: Eve Of Ruin.

• Starts at 10th level, goes to 20th.
• Classic villains and setting, famous characters, D&D's legacy.
• Vecna wants to become the supreme being of the multiverse.
• Vecna is a god of secrets and secrets and the power of secrets are a theme throughout the book.
• A mechanical subsystem for using the power of secrets during combat.
• Going back to Ravenloft, the Nine Hells, places where 5th Edition has been in the last 10 years.
• It would be a fun 'meta experience' for players to visit locations they remember lore about.
• Finding pieces of the Rod of Seven Parts, pieces throughout the multiverse.
• Each piece in one of seven distinct planes or settings.
• Allustriel Silverhand has noticed something is wrong, puts call out to Tasha and Mordenkainen, who come to her sanctum in Sigil.
• The (10th level) PCs are fated to confront Vecna.
• Lord Soth and Strahd show up. Tiamat is mentioned but doesn't appear 'on screen'.
• Twists, turns, spoilers.
• It's a 'love letter to D&D'.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

no mechanic is needed, that is just character backstory. He is an ambitious mage who took on a lot and his health permanently suffered for it, reflected in the low Con. A different char could have a different explanation for their low Con value

Agreed. I feel like while it's important to look at any given character's bits-and-pieces, it's also important to bring that together with a holistic pass. Otherwise, anyone with the same suite of abilities would be too close to the same for my comfort.

"His Magic took a terrible toll on his health" is a GREAT story reason for a low Con, IMO, and doesn't have to have any other mechanical depth than that.

 

[Reynard]

no mechanic is needed, that is just character backstory. He is an ambitious mage who took on a lot and his health permanently suffered for it, reflected in the low Con. A different char could have a different explanation for their low Con value

You seem to have come into the middle of this discussion and are under the mistaken view that I think this is a bad thing. I don't. That the mechanics don't always reflect the fiction is not a problem for me.

 

[mamba]

You seem to have come into the middle of this discussion and are under the mistaken view that I think this is a bad thing. I don't. That the mechanics don't always reflect the fiction is not a problem for me.

you used Raistlin as an example for the fiction being contradicted by the rules

My point is there is no mechanism in the rules for that to happen, so it is a conflict between the fiction and the game mechanics.

I am not seeing a contradiction here, the rules neither contradict nor support it

That is the difference to the ‘if immortality is easy to achieve by the rules, why would anyone go through the trouble of becoming a lich to attain it’ issue.

 

[Reynard]

you used Raistlin as an example for the fiction being contradicted by the rules

I am not seeing a contradiction here, the rules neither contradict nor support it

That is the difference to the ‘if immortality is easy to achieve by the rules, why would anyone go through the trouble of becoming a lich to attain it’ issue.

There is no mechanism to trade Con points for power. That is a contradicition.

 

[Scribe]

The following is my subjective opinion.

D&D-branded fiction (including setting books) is different from D&D the game. At least, I've always treated them separately. Fiction follows the rules of story, because...it's a story. Game rules should follow the setting they are based on, in that the way something works in the setting (like how easy or hard magic is) ought to be reflected in the rules for that thing. That's simulation, which is my gaming philosophy.

Inspiring works often follow the rules of narrative. Games, even those based on such works, IMO shouldn't.

Sure but there is no way old characters like Raistlin can be parsed with current rules.

Its a whole bunch of square holes and round pegs.

 

[Weiley31]

I'm not loving Vecna's design in this art. I don't know exactly what it is, but something about it is bugging me.

I agree with you. I wish they would have given him a more classic lich look. Something just looks unlich like to me.

I like this one the most for Vecna:

 

[Weiley31]

Wizards have their ways.

Life finds a way.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Dragonlance used to follow the rules of D&D more or less. Weis commented once that as time moved on they stopped worrying about it. Story came first.

That’s why no kind of love the original trilogy. You can practically hear the dice rolling as you read.

 

[Micah Sweet]

In the current circumstances, even with A5E as far as I can tell, the mechanics don't match the fiction in regards to the nature, difficulty and danger of learning and using magic. So how do you, someone that thinks it is important, square that?

Where in the fiction of A5e does it claim that magic is more difficult than the rules make it out to be?

 

[Micah Sweet]

You seem to have come into the middle of this discussion and are under the mistaken view that I think this is a bad thing. I don't. That the mechanics don't always reflect the fiction is not a problem for me.

I think the low CON is the mechanics representing the fiction. It could represent it a different way, but it's doing the job now.